10/1/2024
The START team conducted a comprehensive analysis of gaps in the Women’s Health R&D workforce, focusing on sub- Saharan Africa, through a review of published and grey literature. Key findings were presented to the Women’s Health Innovations team, accompanied by a detailed report, summary placemats, and data extraction sheet to highlight barriers and facilitators impacting workforce development.
6/30/2024
The Women's Health Innovation team at the Gates Foundation enlisted the START Center to conduct a literature review to understand the effect of menstrual health product use on infectious outcomes (sexually transmitted infections, urogenital infections, & bacterial vaginosis), and identify corresponding gaps in the literature.
6/17/2024
The START team examined the association between seven key STIs and nine adverse pregnancy outcomes globally, with an emphasis on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to continue building a comprehensive case regarding the impact of STIs on women’s health to inform recommendations for investment pathways in STI prevention, treatment, and diagnostics for the Gates Foundation.
6/7/2024
The START Center conducted key informant interviews and performed a rapid literature review to summarize information on the potential for underutilized non-symbiotic nitrogen-fixing (NSNF) microbes as biofertilizers in sub-Saharan Africa.
6/7/2024
The START team conducted a landscape analysis of sex- and gender-considerations in upstream health research & development via a review of published and grey literature. A final presentation was provided to members of the Women’s Health Innovation team at the Gates Foundation, in addition to a narrative report summarizing the findings.
5/28/2024
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Polio team enlisted the University of Washington's Strategic Analysis, Research & Training (START) Center to execute a literature review to identify and describe gender-related factors affecting vaccine demand and healthcare seeking behavior in Nigeria to inform the creation of study instruments being designed for research on polio in Northern Nigeria.
2/16/2024
The Early Learning Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned START to identify the leaders of early learning departments/programs across the U.S., especially for public school districts in large urban areas, or in areas predominantly servicing the target population of children who face the most significant barriers to opportunity, including Black & Latino children, and children from low-income communities.
2/16/2024
The START Center performed literature reviews to understand the underlying barriers to parental acceptance of the HPV vaccine for their adolescent daughters aged 9-14 years, assess the relationship between HPV vaccination and increased sexual activity in adolescence, and understand if parental amenability to the HPV vaccine for their daughters changed if the vaccine was aligned with cervical cancer prevention rather than with sexual and reproductive health.
2/15/2024
The START team conducted a literature review and interviews with content experts to compare the costs, characteristics, and pros/cons of four mortality data collection platforms (CRVS, SRS, DHS, & MICS) used in low-and middle-income countries.
2/14/2024
The START Center, in conjunction with the Emergency Response team within the Global Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developed a comprehensive report exploring the escalating impact of climate change on public health in humanitarian settings. In particular, climate events and associated public health outcomes were explored for hurricanes & infectious disease in Haiti, drought & malnutrition in Ethiopia, and flooding & infectious disease in Pakistan.
2/12/2024
The START team conducted literature reviews of studies assessing the association between five key STIs (chlamydia, gonorrhea, T. vaginalis, M. genitalium, and syphilis) and both pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Literature was also reviewed to identify evidence of an association between PID and infertility directly. This series of literature reviews was used to generate data visualizations and a ranked list of the STIs in terms of importance and relevance for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Women's Health Innovations Program Strategy Team.
2/9/2024
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned START to aid the Nutrition Program Strategy Team in a scope aimed to deepen understanding of fortification compliance in Costa Rica and Guatemala through key informant interviews, focusing on industry practices, regulatory bodies, coordination, and cooperation. This work, focused on primary research, built on a phase 1 scope that focused on secondary research.
12/15/2023
The START team conducted a literature review of studies published from 2019 - June 2023 on HPV Natural History and resolved issues with extracted information from articles identified in a previously conducted literature review. Results will be used to inform a cervical cancer model in order to better estimate the impact of potential HPV and cervical cancer prevention strategies.
10/3/2023
The START team conducted a landscape analysis of digital health tool enablement of community health workers (CHWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to further understand the existing landscape of digital-enabled CHW deployments and the accompanying evidence on its potential for impact.
9/29/2023
The START team conducted a targeted review of sexual behavior survey instruments and guidelines to generate recommended sets of survey measures corresponding to core model inputs. The Gender Equity and Global Health Division at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will utilize research findings to inform how future data is collected by BMGF grantees so that modelers receive the needed input for model creation.
9/1/2023
The START team built three narrative case studies on existing national food fortification programs in Chile, Costa Rica, and Guatemala to identify successful archetypes in monitoring & evaluation and sustaining adequate levels of fortification. A regional stakeholder analysis was also completed to understand regional support of fortification and how it impacts national programs.
8/30/2023
START was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to support the India Country Office (ICO) in conceptualizing an interdisciplinary research/consultancy partnership in India. In this effort, 5 exemplars were identified.
6/29/2023
The START team conducted a literature review and 4 key informant interviews to identify key stakeholders and best practices in the movement for women’s leadership. Project work included a deep dive on gender quotas and a framework of stakeholder influence and relevance to strategy. This project is a follow-up to 2022's Women's Leadership in Global Health in Sub-Saharan Africa and India project.
6/22/2023
The Economic Mobility and Opportunity Division at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation engaged the START Center to develop four case studies that demonstrate how businesses implemented Good Job Principles, what incentivized them to do so, the impact on the businesses’ bottom line, and the economic mobility of their low-income workers.
6/7/2023
The START team conducted a literature review on tailoring neglected tropical disease interventions in hard-to-reach populations, drawing recommendations and highlighting challenges for an effective programmatic reach.
4/18/2023
The START team conducted a landscape analysis of existent standards and regulations for water reuse in LMICs.
3/15/2023
The START team conducted a landscape assessment of regulatory and policy barriers to PrEP (oral and long-acting) delivery through private sector pharmacies and clinics across Sub-Saharan Africa.
3/9/2023
START conducted a landscape analysis on the Open Access publishing environment and delivered placemats summarizing trends in the Open Access research and manuscript publishing landscape as well as potential policy opportunities that the Foundation can integrate into their current Open Access policy.
2/22/2023
The Development, Policy & Finance (DPAF) team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation engaged the START Center to gain a clearer picture of existing national climate finance plans, as they relate to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and their key features, strengths, and weaknesses by conducting a review of key documents and through key informant interviews.
2/16/2023
The START team conducted a literature review on the associations between extreme heat exposure during pregnancy and adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes, including evidence-based risk reduction strategies to minimize impacts and identification of global partners engaged in this work.
12/15/2022
The START team performed a landscape review of methodological and technical advancements within and beyond the health and humanitarian sectors in order to improve post-Supplemental Immunization Activity (SIA) vaccine coverage evaluations for polio, which may help achieve the ‘last mile’ towards successful eradication.
9/30/2022
The START team conducted key informant interviews and literature review in order to recommend definitions for three core types of equity giving: racial, gender, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-aligned. The team also presented adaptations of these definitions for the India and China geographies, as well as an assessment of where in the philanthropic lifecycle the proposed definitions should be used and measured against.
9/15/2022
The START team conducted a literature review of published research to synthesize evidence around long-term sequelae of Campylobacter, Norovirus & ETEC infections among children under 5 years of age on linear growth, ponderal growth, weight gain, and neurodevelopment.
9/7/2022
The START team conducted a literature review, a dataset review, and key informant interviews to research the differential mortality outcomes between facility and home births and related home birth interventions, first in India, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, and then in other geographies in sub-Saharan African and South Asia.
6/29/2022
The START team conducted a grey literature review to research the existing labor market dynamics and pull key themes and actionable changes that can create environments for women to rise and thrive in positions of leadership in global health.
6/7/2022
The START team conducted research to determine the major facilitators for everyday donors to causes related to gender equality, racial equity, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and created a repository of information of products, tools, and research that promote giving at these levels.
5/4/2022
The Strategic Analysis, Research & Training (START) Center was engaged by the Global Delivery Program Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to review existing evidence on barriers to vaccinating zero-dose children—commonly defined as those that have not received any routine vaccine—and interventions for finding and reaching them.
5/4/2022
The Strategic Analysis, Research, and Training (START) Center Team sought to assess the peer-reviewed literature, sample experiences of national drug regulators & procurers from Africa, and search publicly available drug procurement and registration data to define the size, scope, and public health impact of tiered drug production.
4/13/2022
The START team undertook a systematic review of peer-reviewed and gray literature to create comprehensive documentation of the occurrence of hepatitis E outbreaks globally, which will help quantify the burden of hepatitis E disease, and inform future investments.
2/4/2022
The START team conducted an updated literature review on the causes and implications of the decline in the number of small dollar donors, and how giving and volunteering are associated with social outcomes.
1/11/2022
The START team conducted research through literature reviews and key informant interviews to determine the major drivers and barriers to the uptake of digital tools for primary health care by women and girls in LMICs, and three countries in particular: India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
10/15/2021
The START team documented how evidence from modeling and analytics was used to inform policy in Washington State’s COVID-19 response and identified lessons learned from this experience—which can inform research-policy partnerships, policy decisions, and formation of responsive systems to address public health emergencies in the future.
9/13/2021
The START team conducted a review on academic and grey literature, as well as key informant interviews, to identify how gender interfaces with routine immunization activities in 10 focus geographies. These interactions were not limited to equal coverage of antigens, but included the influence of dynamics at the individual, household, community, health system, and policy level.
9/13/2021
The START team conducted a review on published literature, identified a guiding conceptual framework, and interviewed experts from global programs focusing on vaccination projects. START provided an evidence database that lists the different successful interventions for improving vaccination coverage data quality, along with lists of barriers and facilitators.
9/10/2021
The START team conducted a systematic review of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) to delineate the distribution of EED biomarkers and extract associations between EED biomarkers and health outcomes among women of reproductive age to support the design and implementation of future interventional trials.
9/10/2021
The START team conducted key informant interviews, and a synthesis of two recent literature reviews, to summarize the global and regional perspectives on the need for a replacement to the human landing catch, in order to aid future funding decisions.
9/9/2021
The START team conducted key informant interviews, a Facebook survey, and literature reviews to understand the state of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Nigerian HCPs and identify potential interventions that could be successful in curbing it.
8/6/2021
The START team conducted a systematic review of the long-term sequelae of acute Shigella infection in children under 5 years of age to inform data collection for the Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Shigella surveillance study and support the value proposition for Shigella vaccines.
7/2/2021
The START team developed an R shiny cost-benefit tool that can be used for existing and new mosquito release programs that is generalizable across geographic settings, disease contexts, and mosquito release interventions. The tool includes mosquito release interventions for dengue prevention in Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, and for malaria prevention in Burkina Faso.
6/27/2021
START conducts a comprehensive evaluation of Washington Research Foundation’s Grants Program, benchmarked findings, and provided recommendations.
6/21/2021
The START team described gaps on the literature and practice associated with demand-side interventions to increase rates of care-seeking and healthy home behaviors related to post-natal care (PNC), with a particular emphasis on the well-being of small and sick newborns (SSN).
6/11/2021
The START team was engaged by BMGF to review published literature pertaining to environmental surveillance for soil-transmitted helminths (STH), resulting in a literature review database and an accompanying SWOT analysis.
3/15/2021
The COVID-19 NTD and Immunization Integration Project examined integration between immunization programs and NTD/Malaria mass drug administration, providing recommendations for how the NTD platform could be leveraged to inform the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa.
2/18/2021
START conducted a systematic review of published literature on digital behavior change interventions implemented in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
1/11/2021
START conducted a case study analysis of five major fundraising events to understand key factors that led to the virality of these campaigns, and the immediate and long term impacts of these campaigns on the individual non-profit recipients, and on the overall non-profit fundraising sector.
1/2/2021
START conducted case study analyses of eight organizations utilizing voice recognition in Africa and India with the aim of understanding market forces, business models, and customers as well as the barriers and opportunities to increasing the use of voice technology for development in these regions.
12/11/2020
START conducted a landscaping of nitrocellulose membrane production for lateral flow assay tests as well as presented on the near and long-term feasibility of alternative membrane substrates.
9/14/2020
START reviewed published and grey literature and conducted interviews with key stakeholders to compile four reports detailing innovations in the delivery of primary health care in El Salvador, Iran, Nepal, and Thailand.
9/10/2020
START reviewed the evidence supporting IOM and WHO recommendations on 19 micronutrients for pregnant and lactating women and girls.
6/26/2020
START conducted a landscape analysis to identify existing health systems-related insights relevant to the COVID-19 outbreak, synthesize what is known about how individuals, communities, and systems react, and identify potential opportunities that will better prepare health systems to respond.
2/7/2020
START created a database of current lymphatic filariasis research in India and a directory of key actors to support engagement of researchers and institutions around elimination through systematic searches of published and grey literature.
2/4/2020
START researched levels of poverty, the lifestyles of those living in poverty, and the current state of financial inclusion in Bangladesh and Ethiopia at a national and subnational level.
12/20/2019
START conducted a two-part systematic literature review to (1) better understand the relationship between the presence of pathogens and the occurrence of diarrhea and (2) to estimate case fatality risks (CFRs) associated with specific enteric pathogens stratified by country, region, or setting.
9/18/2019
START conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify the prevalence of rotavirus among people five years and older with diarrhea.
7/12/2019
The START Team performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to evaluate the immunogenicity of alternative dosing schedules for the HPV vaccine.
6/23/2019
The START team researched birthing suites and practices in Sweden, Sri Lanka and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The team produced a case report for each country that allowed readers to compare and contrast the processes in each of the three countries
6/14/2019
The START team reviewed published and grey literature and consulted field experts to identify global health programs, experts, and organizations that could offer key learnings for communities in rural Washington.
6/14/2019
The START Team performed a targeted literature search to assess current interventions for neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), specifically those that show promise in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
6/11/2019
The START Center team responded to a project request from Children’s HeartLink (CHL), an organization that supports capacity-building of pediatric surgical care in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), to conduct a rapid assessment of CHL’s current model and to develop recommendations to support scaling.
5/17/2019
The START Team reviewed published and grey literature and consulted field experts in family planning, emergency response, and mobile health to evaluate the current landscape of training for family planning in crisis settings and to identify opportunities for growth and improvement.
11/5/2018
The START Center conducted a review of country-specific Gavi documents for the Vaccine Delivery team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in order to assess the challenges, successes, and current focus for immunization activities in a variety of low and middle income countries, and to identify and evaluate patterns across health system domains as well as between country categories as defined by the foundation.
9/13/2018
The START team performed data extraction and calculation of Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) indicators from Nigerian national health surveys and conducted a literature review on demand and utilization of MNCH services as they relate to vulnerabilities, social constraints, and differences in the public and private health sectors.
8/22/2018
The START Center, for the Health System Strengthening Analysis, conducted an extensive document review of the current global architecture supporting health system strengthening using peer-reviewed literature, organization reports, websites, and gray literature under the direction of the Vaccine Delivery team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
7/23/2018
START Research Assistant Dylan Green presented START’s findings from the Heterogeneity 90-90-90 project in a session at the AIDS 2018 Conference.
4/30/2018
In October 2016, the START Center launched the Gut Health Digest to support the Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases and Discovery teams at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
4/30/2018
In October 2017, the START Center launched the MNCH Discovery & Treatment Digest to support the Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases and Discovery team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
4/17/2018
The START Center conducted a landscape analysis for the Water, Hygiene, and Sanitation team on available technologies to track trucks, quantify volumes of fecal sludge, and quantify solid composition of fecal sludge using peer reviewed literature, gray literature, product catalogs, and key informant interviews.
1/22/2018
The START team conducted a landscape analysis of existing contraceptive co-administration products, identified novel opportunities for contraceptive co-administration, and conducted a ranking of these opportunities within three user groups.
10/30/2017
The START team conducted a systematic review of data on the distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease serotypes globally in persons of all ages.
6/30/2017
The START team conducted a landscape analysis of family planning surveys to explore the possibility using surveys that collect data on contraceptive use, including DHS and PMA 2020, to monitor changes in availability and use of contraceptives and condoms by adolescent girls and young women in DREAMS districts.
6/28/2017
The START team conducted a review of large household surveys, health management information systems, and global nutrition databases to assess how nutrition data are collected and made available on a global scale.
5/15/2017
The START team used a multi-pronged approach to provide a broad overview of the trends and indicators in the DRC for sectors including health, finance, and infrastructure.
1/10/2017
The START team conducted a literature review of examples of successful and unsuccessful diffusion of programs and interventions aimed at reducing maternal, child, and neonatal mortality in India.
11/4/2016
The START team conducted a literature review of evidence in three thematic areas concerning gender considerations in NTDs: impact of NTDs on women and girls, delivery of NTD programs by women and impact of women in the workplace, and reach of the MDA platform and access by women and girls.
10/10/2016
The Enteric and Diarrheal Disease Team of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation engaged the START team to conduct a landscape analysis probiotic interventions in preterm infants, children under 5 undergoing immunosuppression therapy, or living in Low and Middle Income Countries.
7/1/2016
The START team conducted a comprehensive review of growth and development patterns among vulnerable children, including those living in conflict affected areas, displaced children, and children in orphanages.
6/2/2016
The START team worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) Vaccine Delivery (VxDel) team to develop an understanding of opportunities for their work to reflect a growing gender equity focus across the Foundation by conducting a literature review and developing hypotheses for potential further exploration.
4/28/2016
The START team conducted a comparison across a set of evaluation/recommendation reports generated as a result of the global health response to the 2014 Ebola Pandemic.
4/11/2016
To inform further development of equitable and effective global health partnerships, the START team collaborated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to examine the mutual benefit of international partnerships in global health programs and to develop a strategic roadmap to guide North American academic institution global health programs and their international institution partners.
3/8/2016
The START team worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's family planning team to outline an overview (best practices, lessons learned, way forward) of past and present programs that have used mobile platforms as a way to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health behaviors and outcomes.
2/16/2016
The objective of this project was to review the literature on area-based teamwork for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) or inter-facility collaboration, and to identify critical gaps in the literature to better understand the potential for impact to help shape future investments in this area.
12/9/2015
To inform a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Working Group’s understanding of the field of performance management in health delivery, the START team conducted a comprehensive evidence review of literature from the fields of management, healthcare administration, and global health, identifying gaps in evidence and areas for future exploration.